Tourist information -
Le Mans
Le Mans is 80km northwest of Tours in the département
of Sarthe, some way from the Loire valley but included here as a
good, relatively untouristy base between Normandy and the Loire
valley, with swift transport connections down to Angers and Tours.
The city is taken over by car fanatics in the middle of June for
the famous 24-hour race, but for the rest of the year it's still
lively enough, with some interesting museums and one of the most
beautiful old quarters of any city in France. It was here, in 1129,
that Geoffrey Plantagenet, Count of Maine and Anjou, married Matilda,
daughter of Henry I of England, and where their son, the future
Henry II, was born.
The complicated web of the old town lies on a hill above the River
Sarthe to the north of the central place de la République.
Its medieval streets, a hotch-potch of intricate Renaissance stonework,
medieval half-timbering, sculpted pillars and beams and grand classical
facades, are still encircled by the original third- and fourth-century
Gallo-Roman walls , supposedly the best-preserved in Europe and
running for several hundred metres. Steep, walled steps lead up
from the river, and longer flights descend on the southern side
of the enclosure, using old Gallo-Roman entrances. If you're intrigued,
you can see pictures, maps and plans of Vieux Mans, plus examples
of the city's ancient arts and crafts, most notably the collection
of Malicorne ceramics, in the Musée de la Reine Bérengère
(daily 9am-noon & 2-6pm; 16F/?2.44), one of the Renaissance
houses on rue de la Reine-Bérengère.
Rearing up the hill from the east is the immense Gothic apse of
the Cathédrale St-Julien , with a Romanesque nave and radiating
chapels, on place du Grente (also called du Château), at the
crowning point of the old town. According to Rodin, the now badly
worn sculpted figures of the south porch were rivalled only in Chartres
and Athens. Some of the stained-glass windows here were added in
the thirteenth century, some time after the first Plantagenet was
buried in the church in 1151, but the brightest colours in the otherwise
austere interior come from the tapestries.
In the 1850s a road was tunnelled under the quarter - a slum at
the time - helping to preserve its self-contained unity. The road
tunnel comes out on the south side, by an impressive monument to
Wilbur Wright - who tested an early flying machine in Le Mans -
and into place des Jacobins, the vantage point for St-Julien's double-tiered
flying buttresses and apse. From here, you can walk east through
the park to the Musée de Tessé (daily 9am-noon &
2-6pm; 16F/?2.44), a mixed bunch of pictures and statues including
Georges de la Tour's light at its most extraordinary in the Extase
de St-François , along with copies of brilliant medieval
populist murals in Sarthe churches. It also contains an enamel portrait
of Geoffrey Plantagenet, which was originally part of his tomb in
the cathedral.
The modern centre of Le Mans is place de la République
, bordered by a mixture of Belle Époque buildings and more
modern office blocks, and the Baroque bulk of the church of the
Visitation , built in 1730, with a balustrade inside designed by
one of the sisters of the order. Just south of here is Notre-Dame
de la Couture , a church with Plantagenet vaulting and a fine Last
Judgement scene over the doorway on an otherwise rather ugly facade.
The name has nothing to do with dressmaking but is a corruption
of the word culture from the days when the church was surrounded
by cultivated fields. Inside there are various treasures, including
a shroud of the early seventh-century bishop of Le Mans who founded
the monastery to which this church belonged.
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